Many national, regional, and local pizza companies compete with each other, hoping to distinguish themselves from competitors based on taste, value, quality, delivery, etc. One aspect of retail pizza business concerns presentation of the pizza pie and arrangement of the ingredients. For example, conventional pizza pies include a crust, a layer of sauce, and a layer of cheese and toppings, such as meat or vegetables. Consumers can choose between thin crust, thick crust, deep dish crust, and other crust variations.
In conventional pizza pies, a crust of a pizza pie includes a base portion and an outer crust. The base portion carries the cheese layer and toppings while the outer crust forms a boundary surrounding and containing the cheese layer and layer of toppings. The outer crust prevents the cheese and/or toppings from sliding or moving off of the base portion of the crust, both when the pizza pie is in its baking pan and on the table (or in a delivery box). The outer crust also provides a convenient way for a consumer to handle a piece of pizza while eating the pizza.
Because pizza pie retailers start with generally the same type of ingredients, retailers are challenged to present a pizza pie in a manner to distinguish their pizza pies from the pizza pies of their competitors.